from a handful of questions without answers
On the Mediterranean island of Malta, an Agile community had already been active, with events like the ScrumDay Malta conference and training, workshops, and talks being organized around the country.
On November 15, 2018, the first meetup of Scrum Masters Anonymous (also known as SMA) took place. It was supported by the Agile in Malta community (also on Meetup) and ScrumDay Malta. The meetup focused mostly on the Scrum Framework and the Agile Manifesto.
Without going into details, a Scrum Master’s job involves a lot of working with people and teams, so challenging situations and unique scenarios are routine.
The work required to promote and adopt Business Agility in an organisation has a very transformative nature, and it raises questions that can’t be easily answered by the available literature, videos and training alone. Every context is unique and challenges are very specific to each reality. The goal of the SMA meetup was to create a safe space for these questions to be discussed – without judgment of “who asked” or even “which question matters most”. The meetups were organised by volunteers and hosted by companies/bars/restaurants, always free of charge.
It was cool, but limited
One year later, the model proved successful and matured to the format presented on this site. Discussions expanded on the topic of Business Agility as a whole (beyond Scrum), and the event had participation from professionals with roles beyond the Scrum accountabilities (Project Managers, Team Leaders, coaches, etc.). Naturally, the name Scrum Masters Anonymous caused a perception that the meetup was restricted to Scrum Masters and the topic limited to Scrum, so we had to change.
One year later, it was time to move to the next level
Inspired by the name of a popular discussion model called Lean Coffee, the “Anonymous Coffee” model emerged. We renamed the meetup to “Agile Anonymous Coffee” and created this site to share the idea, suggesting it expand to other communities.
On the 10th edition of the meetup, celebrating a one-year anniversary, the change was introduced. Now the idea can hopefully benefit other groups from different worlds with a similar challenge: facilitating discussion of questions in a safe environment, where no question has more value than another.
Credits and acknowledgements
I am Paulo Amaral, creator of the Scrum Masters Anonymous meetup and volunteer organiser/facilitator.
On this journey, I counted on the very kind support and participation of Scrum Day organisers (at that time) Adam Darmanin, Antony Nizamoglou and Anthony Farrugia – absolute aces in everything related to Agility.
I also counted on the help of many dear people to organise the places we used (before and after the events), as well as the valuable participation of all members with their questions and experiences.
The pilot event was hosted by Ixaris, with help from their Scrum Master at the time Mathew Croker. The stationary used was provided by Blexr. Thank you for helping us take the first step!